Are Languages at Risk from National Boundaries?

Linguistic borders according to Putinism

What would happen to our world if we reduced the number of
languages from 7,000 to 9? Imagine how this would affect
relationships between people, nations, commerce, education and all
institutions.

According to Putinism, the fact that Russian speakers should be
protected everywhere opens a great discussion around the world. My
favorite magazine The Economist took some time to provide
an interesting and detailed analysis of how this argument might
work. Boundaries across nations would need to be restructured and
as per Mr. Putin's principles, linguistic borders would be set as
per an older colonial world view.

"...
Portugal gets to reclaim Brazil, Spain most of the rest of Central
and South America and France most of west Africa, which would
probably be fine by the locals..."

With the establishment of new rulers, a country's culture would
be strongly affected. If we think of culture and all of its facets,
we may find that apart from people, mindset, traditional food and
local customs, each culture's language would be mixed with a new
ruler's language and would even be under threat to disappear or be
absorbed by the new mothers' tongues. "... A mighty Scandinavian
kingdom comes into being-including Finland, although Finnish is
very different from the Scandinavian tongues. Since Swedish is
Finland's second language, the Vikings would have strong grounds
for bringing about the sort of peaceful merger based on shared
cultural values for which they are famous."

English fate

And what about the fate of the English language considering that
English has become the modern Lingua Franca for international
commerce and relationships? And thanks to the phenomenon of
globalization, English has turned out to be the primary language
for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States and Britain of
course.

If we analyze the geography of languages in relation to the
former colonies that were established all over the world, we would
find out that the English speaking countries are the result of a
cultural extension from Britain. Through its colonies where
speakers that immigrated to the colonies tended to be intermingled
themselves with the locals and by contagious diffusion, non English
speakers also acquired the basics of the language. Many colonies
had adopted the language of the native people as the official
language, while others, kept their own native language as a
vernacular language and adopted English as their official language
to promote their economy and win international business and build
foreign relationships with other nations.

Geography of languages

The geography of languages could be considered as the science
that studies the varieties of tongues although it is intrinsically
related to the study of dialects (Dialectology). It studies a
specific region or area and through various methodologies (such as
direct surveys to the inhabitants), it results in maps so as to
show clearly a language's location and distribution. It is said
that if there are no boundaries or frontiers, there would be no
dialects, but the geography of languages shows today that this
basics of Dialectology is no longer valid. The only real boundary
could be a sea. The limits among areas are disappearing if we
measure them through language variations as languages are daily
being affected by borrowings from other languages and therefore,
the "original or pure" language has been reduced to Sanskrit or
Latin (this latter still used for Vatican City for example).

It is important to review the fact that the geography of
languages is based mainly on geography. However as we understand
the earth as the habitat for human beings, and as a consequence all
the actions completed by those inhabitants in relation to their
social life, cultures and natural environments, we need to examine
other non-geographical aspects. Different studies have revealed how
nature can shape languages (especially at the phonetics and
vocabulary levels) but moreover, it's amazing to see how different
dialects can survive within one geographical area. If we consider
that "The world's 7 billion people speak more than 7,000 languages;
in Russia alone there are more than 100", we can easily understand
the importance of helping languages to survive. Cultures need to
continue their own development to evolve across years and thanks to
the mixture of inhabitants and geographical distribution, new
language flavors could be born.

Conclusion

As a translation agency, we look at the world in terms of
"locales". We define these locales as a combination or geography,
language and culture. We believe you need to address all aspects of
a locale to communicate in a manner that will be received in the
best possible way by your audience. Of course we welcome the great
diversity in locales and the languages they use. We believe in the
survival of dialects and the culture embedded in each spoken and
written word… that is our business.

GPI is a leading provider of software, website and documentation
translation and localization services. GPI provides translation
services into over 100 different languages including Arabic,
Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and
Spanish.

For more information or help with your next translation project,
please do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail at info@globalizationpartners.com,
or by phone at (866) 272-5874, or by requesting a free web translation
quote for your next website translation project.

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Farah Fathy - Global SEO SpecialistFarah is a native Arabic speaker born and residing in Cairo, Egypt. She received her degree in Commerce and English from Ain-Shams University studying marketing, management, economics and accounting. Her experience includes working in various specialties in global digital marketing with specific training in Link Building, Website Traffic Analysis, On-page Optimization and Off-page Optimization as well as standard Social Media Marketing. She is skilled in a variety of tools including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Light Room and SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SeoMoz, Opensite Explorer, Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. She enjoys playing sports such as swimming and basketball and loves to read in her spare time.